Beyond
Tapestry: 780mm x 635mm (framed)
British wool on linen warp
Price: £2,750
Beyond is woven on a linen warp at 4wpi and the weft is comprised of five hand-dyed strands each spun to 2/10Nm. The tapestry is presented at 22 inches high and 28.5 inches wide and mounted in a moulded wooden frame. Inside the frame, woven into one hem, is the year (26) in binary and maker’s mark in Morse code (GP).
Beyond explores the relationship between space and colour and the viewer’s brain may believe they are seeing things they are not. The weft is carefully dyed, and the individual threads are painstakingly blended to create the exact tone and hue. The fundamental simplicity of construction belies the resulting complexity of gradation of colour.
When starting a tapestry, everything is possible. Knowing what to say may be the first problem but once this has been decided the second problem is even more difficult: how to create it.
Although informed by Abstract Expressionism, particularly Colour Field pieces with their all-over compositions covering entire, lively pictorial spaces, Beyond nods repeatedly to the Optical Art movement and salutes the work of Victor Vasarely and Bridget Riley.
Art shouldn’t stop at the retina, it should encourage thought and reflection and allow the viewer to discover themselves in the work. Maybe Beyond will enable this, maybe not. Maybe it will simply give the opportunity to reflect on what Beyond means to them. What is beyond the present, or through the door, or over the horizon? The Chinese proverb says, “a journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step”. But what is beyond the second stride?
